strange suspension sound?? suggestions??

[johnc@together.net]

ok, today out of the blue, everytime i hit a significant rolling bump i
have a funny scraping/squeaking sound from my right front corner.  at
first i thought it was more of a scraping, metal dragging on something
sound, today i am thinking maybe its got a squishy-squeaky rubber
quality to it too???  i would have thought for sure that it was packed
snow in the wheel well, except snow isn't allowed in VT anymore it
seems.

i keep stopping an looking under the car.  nothing dragging, nothing
obviously bent or out of place.
i push down on that corner and bounce it.  nothing.  i pull up on that
corner and bounce.  nothing.
dealer has no suggestions on the phone, just 'bring it in and let me
drive it'.  fair enough, but has to wait 'til i return from Philly, and
in the meantime my brain is churning.

why now?  dunno.  yesterday for the first time in a long time, had a
large passenger in the front right seat, normally my car is a 1 person
ride.  probably arbitrary coincidence.  washed the car this weekend,
probably got water frozen up everywhere.

seems innocuous enough - no handling problems yet, but i can't stand
it.  doesn't make the sound if you pitch the wheel back and forth to get
the body to roll around.  mostly fore-aft pitching.  driving over train
tracks is the perfect stimulus.

any chances of a bad shock, and what kind of sound might this make?
can't imagine this is likely with under 16k miles...

TIA for any and all suggs...

JC - '97 A4 1.8TQ